24.500/Phil253 topics in philosophy of mind/perceptual experience

[Pages:21]24.500/Phil253 topics in philosophy of mind/perceptual experience

session 2

Figure by MIT OCW.

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

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plan

Figure by MIT OCW.

? martin, transparency ? the objection to intentionalism ? the argument for the dependency thesis

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

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Figure by MIT OCW.

intentionalism (roughly): ? perceptual experience represents that such-and-such ? the content of experience (the proposition that such-

and-such) is the same in the good and bad cases ? for instance, when Tye is hallucinating, "his

experience represents the presence of a blue expanse of water in his environment" (385) ? the content of experience is thus abstract and not particular

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Figure by MIT OCW.

disjunctivism (roughly):

? there is no common content

? in the good case, "the fact perceived is itself `made manifest' to the subject and is constitutive of his experience" (399)

? and the blue expanse is a "constituent"

? in the (hallucinatory) bad case, "I am in a situation which I cannot distinguish from that one [the good case]" (401)

? I am having an experience of a blue expanse iff either I am veridically perceiving a blue expanse or I am not veridically perceiving but cannot know that I'm not

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

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the dependency thesis

Figure by MIT OCW.

? to imagine [sensorily] an F is to imagine experiencing

an F

? `F' replaced by `pig', `table', `unicorn', etc.

Phil. How say you, Hylas, can you see a thing which is at the same time unseen?

Hyl. No, that were a contradiction.

Phil. Is it not as great a contradiction to talk of conceiving a thing which is unconceived?

Hyl. It is.

Phil. The, tree or house therefore which you think of is conceived by you?

Hyl. How should it be otherwise?

Phil. And what is conceived is surely in the mind?

Hyl. Without question, that which is conceived is in the

mind.

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

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? "sensory" imagination = imagination that involves mental imagery

? some issues: ? the imagery debate ? common representations ? (neo-) Humeanism

? see McGinn

? the dependency thesis

Figure by MIT OCW.

(A) (B) (C) Figure by MIT OCW.

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

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immediacy

? when one imagines an F, the imagined situation contains an F (414)

? an apparent triviality

Figure by MIT OCW.

? but now, given the dependency thesis, intentionalism looks problematic, because the intentionalist holds that one can "experience an F" in the absence of an F

Figure by MIT OCW.

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

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1. experiencing an F does not entail that an F

exists so (plausibly):

Figure by MIT OCW.

2. when one imagines experiencing an F, the

imagined situation need not contain an F

but, by the dependency thesis:

3. when one imagines experiencing an F, the imagined situation must contain an F ? contradiction

Figure by MIT OCW.

Cite as: Alex Byrne, course materials for 24.500 Topics in the Philosophy of Mind: Perceptual Experience, Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

24.500/Phil253 S07

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